Rutgers: Lessons of the Holocaust

Published 8:18 pm, Friday, April 11, 2014

Hitler is barely mentioned in this multimedia Holocaust curriculum. Students learn that the ultimate perpetrators were not Hitler-like monsters. They were ordinary people. Perpetrators, victims, bystanders and "up-standers" were neighbors.

"Echoes and Reflections," a curriculum teachers can adapt for students from fifth grade through high school, was developed as a collaborative effort by three leading educational agencies: the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education, and Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.

"My goal is for you to fall in love with this book and use it," said Marji Lipshez-Shapiro, Director of Education for the Connecticut Region of ADL, addressing participants in a recent all-day teacher training at Greenwich Academy.

This enormous binder is a valuable resource that contains everything teachers need to address the complex issues of the Holocaust, as well as to teach its lessons for us today. The binder includes a DVD with visual historical testimony and is free to participants, as is the training itself.

This was the first training held in Greenwich. Among the 19 participants were teachers from Eastern Middle School, Brunswick, and Greenwich Academy, along with teachers from other area schools. Gloria Tearte, director of diversity and staff building at Greenwich Academy, spearheaded the effort to bring the program to Greenwich after she participated in a teacher training at Quinnipiac College.

Tearte praised the program. "It enables teachers to share information in a way that children can understand," she told me. Tearte stressed the importance of hearing survivor testimony and keeping the memory alive for future generations.

The training revealed that teaching the Holocaust involves more than historical facts. This curriculum's fundamental premise is that the murder of 6 million Jews and others, including 11/2 million children, teaches the terrible consequences of bigotry and hate when they're allowed to fester unchecked as individuals and governments fail to take a stand against what's morally wrong.

How does it happen that neighbors can act in such a way? Students see the faces of these neighbors and have the opportunity to put themselves in real situations and real roles, whether victim or perpetrator, bystander or up-stander.

"You must be an up-stander," said Kempton, in addressing the lessons of the Holocaust. "You can't remain a bystander and be silent."

The curriculum presents the Holocaust as a matter of concern for all humanity. "It's a myth that the Holocaust is a Jewish issue," Lipshez-Shapiro said.

The ADL, founded in 1913, fights all forms of bigotry and is known for its many educational programs designed to combat anti-Semitism, prejudice, bias and hate. One of ADL's important teaching tools is the pyramid of hate. Prejudiced attitudes form its base. Going up the pyramid, leading to genocide at its pinnacle, are successive acts of bias, discrimination and violence. It's been noted, said Lipshez-Shapiro, that the pyramid, when turned on its side, becomes a slippery slope.

"Why should we care about bullying?" Lipshez-Shapiro asked. "Look at what it could lead to. The seeds are planted at the bottom of the pyramid. Being a bystander is one of the primary fertilizers of seeds of hate."

The curriculum is divided into 10 multi-part lessons: "Studying the Holocaust"; "Anti-Semitism"; "Nazi Germany"; "The Ghettos"; "The `Final Solution' "; "Jewish Resistance"; "Rescuers and Non-Jewish Resistance"; "Survivors and Liberators"; "Perpetrators, Collaborators and Bystanders"; and "The Children."

The morning session was an interactive training with in-depth examination of the Lodz Ghetto in Poland and the concept of resistance. This included related survivor testimony from the accompanying DVD. The lesson on resistance was a writing exercise that brought forth the many ways Jews resisted, other than through armed resistance.

In the afternoon, five smaller groups were assigned different lessons and then reported back to the full group. At the conclusion of the training, Holocaust survivor Anita Schorr, a Westport resident, spoke to a larger audience in the school auditorium.